


Better

by breathtaken



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Canon Era, Episode: s01e10 Musketeers Don't Die Easily, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 18:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2783954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathtaken/pseuds/breathtaken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He follows the promise of light through to Athos’ bedroom with cautious step, where there’s a fire burning strong in the grate and Athos is in his shirtsleeves, a bottle of wine in one hand and a slim volume in the other – poetry, possibly, or essays. He doesn’t bother looking up at the sound of Aramis’ boots on the wood, just closes the book with a snap and says, “I was wondering when you’d show up.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [princeyoungjaes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princeyoungjaes/gifts).



If anyone had asked Aramis for his thoughts as he watched Athos turn his back on the woman who was his wife and walk away for the last time, letting the locket he had worn as long as Aramis had known him dangle from its slim chain for just a few moments before it fell from his fingers into the dirt – well, then he would have said that from that moment on, he would expect Athos to be better.

Not instantly, of course; not overnight. But slowly, steadily, as the warming of the earth beneath a slow-passing cloud, until he realised one sunny morning he’d all but forgotten the chill of the biting wind.

It surprises Aramis, then, when instead of beginning to blossom into the man he knows Athos can be – the man Aramis has caught glimpses of whenever Athos forgets himself and the weight he carries, and lives purely in the moment – he actually begins to retreat even further back into himself, shutting himself off with as marked a determination as Aramis has ever seen from him. In the weeks that follow, he spends not a single moment longer in his brothers’ company than necessary; and Aramis finds himself in no doubt as to how Athos _is_ spending his time.

While he doesn’t seem as bad as Aramis has sometimes known him – Athos can still be encouraged to eat something most days, at least, and Aramis never sees him stumble when he oughtn’t or lose his edge in a fight – for Aramis to watch him decline conversation, striding determinedly from the garrison the moment his duty ends, without looking back, is harder than it’s ever been.

It’s as if the past five years never happened, in fact.

Aramis tried, of course, to draw him out: he began to insist that Athos accompany the three of them to the tavern of an evening and stopped taking no for an answer, with an easy smile pasted on his face that would have fooled anybody who knew him less well. But when Athos stopped protesting and started simply disappearing en route, melting away into the evening crowd without a word to any of them, Aramis was forced to concede that he simply would not be able to force him into anything he did not want to do.

He’s always known that Athos is stubborn when opposed, even more so than Aramis himself, though he still feels that not to have tried would have been to do his brother a disservice; and so he gives him another fortnight to come around. All the time trying not to dwell too heavily on the persistent mental image of Athos drinking alone in the moonlight, not bothering even to close his shutters or to light a candle, mourning everything he’s lost.

When the night of Aramis’ self-imposed deadline comes, with Athos still determinedly absent, he waits until half way through the evening before leaving Porthos and d’Artagnan behind with the vague yet knowing adieu that normally means there’s a place for him in a welcoming bed – though it’s to Athos’ lodgings he goes, rapping twice before pushing experimentally at the door, surprised when it swings open under his touch.

He follows the promise of light through to Athos’ bedroom with cautious step, where there’s a fire burning strong in the grate and Athos is in his shirtsleeves, a bottle of wine in one hand and a slim volume in the other – poetry, possibly, or essays. He doesn’t bother looking up at the sound of Aramis’ boots on the wood, just closes the book with a snap and says, “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

They have danced this dance too many times for Aramis to bother asking how or why, so he simply hangs his hat deliberately on top of the bottle in Athos’ hand, dropping down next to him on the mattress. “Then why didn’t you just talk to me, and save us both the trouble?”

“That would imply that I wanted to bring this forward.”

Aramis raises his eyebrows in surrender, not that Athos is looking.

He’s patient, he reminds himself. He can wait, even for Athos. Perhaps especially for Athos.

Who is at this moment picking up Aramis’ hat off his bottle, holding it fastidiously between thumb and finger for a moment before dropping it on the floor, and taking a heavy swig.

It throws up a small cloud of dust as it lands.

Never one to be beaten so easily, Aramis immediately picks the offending hat back up again and drops it neatly on top of Athos’ head, discovering to his satisfaction that it’s slightly too big for him.

“If I told you to fuck off, would you?” Athos asks, seemingly rhetorically, as he takes Aramis’ hat straight back off his head again and this time leans forward to place it carefully on top of the large wooden trunk against the adjacent wall, just out of Aramis’ reach.

“Not a chance.” Aramis reaches for Athos' bottle, but is forced to concede temporary defeat after a few seconds of undignified wrestling. “But if you like, we can skip the foreplay and go straight to the part where you start talking to me.”

“And there was me thinking you were all about the foreplay,” Athos deadpans, looking over at Aramis for the first time and quirking an eyebrow.

Aramis can’t help laughing, a short bark of it that sounds just a little too loud over the muted crackling of the fire. “With you, my dear Athos, I always cut to the chase,” he counters, falling into the well-worn rhythms of polite flirting as easily as he falls into sleep, for just long enough to try and fool Athos that he’s got the upper hand before pouncing again.

“Now, are you going to tell me or shall I guess?”

“Guess, I think. That will at least be amusing.”

Athos isn’t giving an inch, it seems, not that Aramis should have expected anything less; and though he came here firmly on the offensive, now that the moment  presents itself he finds he’s reluctant to begin.

Reluctant to speak the name of the woman who has come between them for so long.

She is gone, he reminds himself; conveniently ignoring the fact that what comes between them now, he no longer knows.

"I though you’d be happier, now that it’s all over. But if anything, you seem even worse."

There’s no point dissembling, after all.

Athos raises an eyebrow. “And what makes you say I’m unhappy?”

“Well, this.” Aramis waves a hand in front of him, as if to indicate _all of it_. “Drinking alone every night. Shutting yourself off. We do know the signs by now.”

“Look at me,” Athos argues immediately, eyes narrowing, “look closely. Am I drunk?”

Aramis leans forward a little, peers into Athos’ eyes, which are as sharp as they are in combat; looks carefully round the room for the first time, and sees no forest of empty bottles; thinks of the way Athos has spoken tonight, consonants as crisp as if he were addressing His Majesty himself.

“…no.”

Something he hasn’t understood, then.

While he’s still gathering his thoughts, Athos says, “I’d like to ask some questions of my own, if I may.”

“Of course."

“Would you lie with me, if I asked you?”

Aramis stares, his heart suddenly in his throat.

It’s a hypothetical, decides the small part of his brain that’s still functioning at all, and not just filled with a sort of blank horror; it’s not a proposition – not like this, and not from _Athos,_ of all people.

_He knows_.

He must, to even be asking such a thing.

It never occurs to him to lie, not that he would expect Athos to believe him if he did.

“Yes,” he replies, spreading his hands helplessly before him as if to say, _do what you will with me_.

Athos nods, looking – _amused_ , for some reason that Aramis simply can’t fathom. “Hmm,” he says, then, “Why?”

Aramis shrugs slightly. “Because you’re my brother.”

“Would you lie with the whole garrison, then?” Athos counters; and even though Aramis knows he’s being goaded, it still stings.

“You’re different,” Aramis growls, “you know that.”

“Porthos, then,” Athos persists. “D’Artagnan.”

“Yes.”

“Have you?”

“No.”

“Why not, if you want to?”

“I said I _would_ , not that I _want to,_ ” Aramis points out, his hands curling into fists, no longer caring that Athos can see it. Refusing to admit that he does want to, very much. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“And yet I want to hear you say it.” 

“Because I’m _scared_ , damn it,” Aramis snaps, his composure finally cracking. “You know what could happen as well as I do, now what the hell is the point of all this?!”

He stills immediately as Athos puts a hand on his knee.

“You come to my door and ask to see my heart,” Athos says, his calm voice cutting through the new quiet like a priest in his church, Aramis thinks. “I want you to know what that means.”

When he can’t hold Athos’ gaze, Aramis stares at the flames still burning bright in the grate, tamping down his own sudden remorse. 

He does what he does, and Athos too; and nobody should expect anything else.

“Congratulations,” he mutters in the end, “you’ve made your point. I’ll leave you in peace then.”

Athos ignores him. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I knew?” he asks instead, not removing his hand.

“How did you know,” Aramis replies flatly, suddenly tired of the whole thing and not sure he cares, scrubbing wearily at his forehead as if he could slough off the dust of his cares.

“Because I listen instead of talking,” Athos explains, only a little pointed. “Observance, nothing more. But nothing anybody else would have seen.”

Aramis has been waiting for some time now for Athos to let go of his knee, and yet he has not. Slowly, tentatively, he covers Athos’ hand with his own.

He is certainly not expecting Athos to angle his hand upwards and lace their fingers together.

“I don’t know what to say to you any more,” he admits, thinking of little more than the skin newly-warm against his.

“Well, if it stops you trying to put me back together for ten minutes.”

Aramis looks sharply up at that, wondering if he should be surprised; but then again, Athos has always seen more than he has any right to. “You could have just told me to back off, you know.”

“Would you have?”

It’s clear they both know better.

“Give me a fucking drink, then,” Aramis mutters, holding his free hand out expectantly for the bottle. 

“Here. You’ve earned it.” Athos passes it over. “You were wrong, you know. I’m not unhappy.”

Aramis blinks at the sudden change of subject. He wasn’t expecting to suddenly get the answers he’d been asking for, so quickly; and as the seconds pass in silence, he finds he’s holding his breath, holding his tongue. Not sure if he’s scared to say anything after what’s already been said this evening, or if he just doesn’t want to scare off what looks like an approaching confidence.

He passes the bottle back without a word, squeezes Athos’ fingers, still joined with his.

“I just needed some time to myself,” Athos continues, seemingly speaking to the room as much as to Aramis. “To think. Until very recently, I was… wedded to the past, so to speak.” He gives a wry half-smile; _humour is tragedy plus time_ , Aramis thinks. “Now I find myself seriously considering the present for the first time, for its own sake.”

“Is there so much to consider, then?”

He posed the question lightly, but when Athos replies, it’s quite serious: "Yes. There is." He hesitates. "Would you stay?"

The first words to come to Aramis’ lips are, _Are you serious?_ , but it’s clear from Athos’ expression – grave as ever, but with a strange shy hope behind his eyes that Aramis has never seen before – that he has never been more so.

“Why?” Aramis manages in the end, mouth suddenly dry.

Athos sighs slightly, flicks his eyes up and down as if to say, _well, I should have expected that_.

“Because… I have asked myself the same question, and still I ask.”

Aramis rests his free hand, very lightly, against Athos’ neck, fingers brushing the pulse there, and watching Athos’ body tighten, draw up as if preparing for battle. “I have always found,” he replies carefully, “that there are certain questions for which experience is the only answer.”

With anyone else, Aramis would be bold; but with Athos he is careful, the echoes of half a decade of distance, carefully maintained, still stronger than this new, intriguing, unnerving creature who asks for things Aramis had never expected, whose fingers are still interlinked with his.

“What, exactly, are you asking of me?” he asks, as gently as he can.

“In truth, I don’t yet know,” Athos replies; though his eyes flutter shut at the play of Aramis’ fingers along his neck.

Though they have lain beside each other scores of times, in beds and under canvas and under no other blankets than the leaves of trees and the starry sky, their breathing aligning in the night, they have never _touched;_ and Aramis has never really thought about what it might mean to do so, never imagined he might be permitted this.

“I tried to stay away,” Athos continues, as Aramis moves the hand from Athos’ neck to his shoulder, digs his thumb into the muscle there. It sounds like a confession. “I needed to… decide, I suppose, what this might mean.”

“It need not mean any more or less than you want it to,” Aramis replies. It’s as close to a platitude as he dares with Athos, who he knows has never taken to words of comfort; but the truth is that when he loves somebody, he’s content to offer them whatever they are willing to receive.

“Lie down?”

Athos puts the bottle down, and they manoeuvre themselves round onto the narrow mattress together, near-fully clothed; one of Aramis’ hands on Athos’ waist, the other curled into the base of his throat, fingers stalling against the temptation to touch.

He shifts his hand, and Athos’ eyes fall shut.

Anyone else, he would kiss now.

“Am I reading this right?” he can’t help asking, not yet quite able to trust what his instincts are telling him, not when it’s so far from what he ever would have predicted.

Athos’ eyes blink slowly open.

“That is what your reputation would have me expect,” he replies, with a faint smile; and perhaps the fact that he makes no move away from Aramis, but no move to close the remaining gap between them either, is enough of an answer.

He was wrong, Aramis realises, to think that the old, closed-off Athos had vanished, to be replaced by something entirely new; even though they’ve come somewhere together that Aramis never expected, Athos is still distant, still challenging his approach.

It’s in his nature to answer a challenge with a challenge, of course.

He moves his hand low on Athos’ stomach, just above the waistband of his breeches. “May I?”

"I'd prefer if you didn't," Athos replies; and Aramis bites his lip and resists the temptation to tell Athos that a straightforward 'no' would have been fine, moving his hand back to rest lightly on Athos' waist, without a word.

Not that, then.

The sting of rejection’s faint, but still present; and he allows himself to protest, "At least tell me you allow yourself some relief from time to time."

Athos screws his face up. "Rarely. I don't find it helps anything."

Aramis thinks then of the fact of physical release, without either love or company, and finds he rather agrees.

"When was the last time?"

"Five years,” Athos admits, slumping just a little beneath Aramis’ touch.

"You shouldn't have to live like that."

"People have lived with worse."

"And been driven mad by less," Aramis counters immediately, though he stops short of asking again.

"Is this something you do often?"

"It's been known." He can’t help bristling under the look Athos gives him. "I find that comfort is comfort, no matter where you seek it."

"Comfort, is that what you call it?"

"And what's wrong with that?" Aramis replies, more archly than he intended. "None of us are made of stone, no matter how you may wish it to be otherwise."

He expects Athos to get annoyed; but instead a hand comes to rest over his own, and Athos’ reply when it finally comes is quiet, and wry: “You always know me better than I allow myself to believe.”

Aramis lets the silence do its work, until Athos continues, “I don’t intend to take a lover. I would not lose myself that way again. But… that doesn’t mean I wish to always be alone.”

“You don’t have to be,” he replies immediately, easy as breathing. “I’m sure we’d all agree on that.”

Athos says nothing more, just squeezes Aramis’ hand and tucks it tighter around himself as the fire starts to die down; and Aramis almost thinks he’s fallen asleep when Athos suddenly says into the silence, “You should ask him. Porthos. I can’t imagine he’d refuse you.”

Aramis blinks, holding his breath for a moment, thoughts crowding him all at once – _how can he be sure – this is_ Athos, _if he says he knows –_ and overwhelmed, he settles for a murmured, “Thank you.”

“Thank me by waiting until you’re not both sleeping next door to me,” Athos remarks; and Aramis laughs in pure, unrestrained joy, leaning over on impulse to press a kiss to Athos’ temple.

“Get some sleep,” he replies, reaching for the blanket and pulling it up over Athos’ shoulder – checking the shutters one last time, the level of the fire in the grate. “I’ll be here.”

"I know you will," Athos murmurs, a smile curling at the corners of his lips as he lets his eyes fall closed, into what Aramis has faith will be a restful sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Humour is tragedy plus time' is Mark Twain, of course, but I'm afraid I couldn't resist.


End file.
